


Four Times Harry Was Intrigued by Astoria Malfoy, and One Time He Was No Longer Interested

by Eldabe



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-23 22:02:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20238226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eldabe/pseuds/Eldabe
Summary: Harry, still a fairly new Auror, didn't know what to expect when he received his first summons to the Department of Mysteries. He certainly was not expecting to meet Draco Malfoy'swife.





	1. Chapter 1

Harry silently urged the elevator to move faster, adjusting his Auror's robes impatiently. Nearly three years in the ministry and he never had to deal with the Department of Mysteries. But apparently when they sent a summons, it didn't matter that you were in the middle of two cases and trying to coordinate new evidence custody standards with Hermione. Kinglsey told him it wasn't worth the trouble to ignore them without a good reason so now Harry was running late from arguing with a new trainee.

The memo had not exactly had a lot of information when it flew into his cubicle on Friday on black parchment instead of the normal Ministry purple, telling him that he was to report to the Department of Mysteries at two in the afternoon on Monday. Mr. Weasley had shrugged when Harry talked to him about it during Sunday dinner.

"It could be anything, Harry," Mr. Weasley had said, loading his plate with mushy peas. "You'll have to tell us about it."

"You think they're finally going to get you for destroying all of those prophesies?" Ron joked.

"Nah," Ginny said, "They'd be putting all the blame on you, Ron, not the Chosen One."

"You should go with him, Ginny," Ron shot back, "offer to let the start studying Quidditch skills."

"Could you?" Harry broke in. "You have off tomorrow, right?"

"Was Ginny named in the letter, Harry?" Percy asked, from further down the table.

"No?" Harry said. "But if it has anything to do with the prophecy stuff, Ginny, Ron and Hermione were all there."

"And Luna and Neville," Hermione added.

Percy was shaking his head. "If it's for the Department of Mysteries, only the people actually invited are allowed in. They've tightened security since you all broke in."

"Yes," Mr. Weasley agreed, "you'll have to bring your letter, Harry. I think that might be the only way to get past the door."

Mrs. Weasley came out then with the roast and the whole conversation had been interrupted. Harry nearly forgot about it until Ginny pulled him aside before he got in the Floo.

"Remember," Ginny said, "if they ask you to donate your brain to the brain collection, I'm not done with it yet." They had managed a thorough snog before Ron bellowed that he certainly wasn't waking Harry the next morning.

Harry smirked a little at the memory as the elevator doors opened, and he rushed down the hall. Hermione had advised a little more caution and deference when she came by their office to say hi to Ron that morning. "They're enormously influential in the Ministry, Harry. It's worth staying friendly."

Which is why Harry was trying not to be too late to this mysterious meeting.

He slowed down as he approached to door to the Department of Mysteries and smoothed his down his robes. He could hear voices chatting in front of the door and Harry was startled to realize he recognized one of those voices --

"--if you're sure." Draco was saying to the woman standing next to him. She was smiling at him kindly, and Harry noticed that they were holding hands, both of her hands held in his as they faced each other. Draco's back was to Harry, and he hadn’t noticed Harry yet. The woman's eyes didn't leave Draco's face as she laughed.

"It will be fine, Draco," she said, and leaned forward to kiss him. She noticed Harry as she pulled back. "Oh, hello!"

Draco turned around, and froze seeing Harry.

"Hello," Harry said cautiously.

The woman turned back to Draco. "See? Everything will be fine. Harry Potter is here!"

Draco and Harry's eyes met for a second and Harry knew that Draco absolutely knew better than to think Harry' presence made everything fine, ever.

In that moment of hesitation, the woman leaned forward and kissed Draco's cheek. "Go home, I'll Floo back later. The goblins are supposed to come to change the locks, don't forget."

Draco turned back to the woman and took her hand again. "Be careful," he said, low.

The woman squeezed Draco’s hands. "I will be."

Draco met Harry's eyes again deliberately, and then nodded, before he strode down the hall. The woman watched Draco go, a small smile playing on her lips.

"He worries," she explained to Harry, and then put out her hand. "Hello, I'm Astoria Greengra-Sorry! Malfoy. Astoria Malfoy."

Harry automatically reached out to shake her hand, and blurted before he could stop himself, "You married Malfoy?"

His tone had been more incredulous than congratulatory, but she broke out in a massive smile. "Yes, a little less than a month ago, now."

Harry vaguely remembered Hermione mentioning something to do with Malfoy a few weeks ago. Hermione was the one that reminded him that the Society section of the Daily Prophet was actually worth reading.

Harry was trying to figure out if he should congratulate her or offer her or kidnap her to St. Mungo's when she spotted the letter in his hand.

"Oh, are you here for a meeting as well?" Astoria asked. She dug in her handbag and pulled out a familiar-looking black letter. "They didn't give a lot of details, did they?"

"No," Harry agreed, as she unfolded her black parchment, which looked just like his own.

"Getting this was so scary," Astoria said, laughing. "Parents always tell their children about the Department of Mysteries to get them to behave. My father used to say that if I didn't stop jumping down the stairs to the garden he would send me to the Department of Mysteries so they could permanently attach a broom to my bottom."

Harry laughed along weakly. She seemed so different from how he imagined someone who would have married Draco Malfoy. She wasn't at all like Pansy Parkinson, for example. 

She flattened her letter as if she was about to show him something, when the door opened. A middle-aged witch in Unspeakable robes came out, looking annoyed.

"Have you your invitations?"

Harry and Astoria both held their letters up.

"Good," the witch said, "Come along, then."

Before Harry could take a step, Astoria slipped beside him and tucked her arm around his, resting her hand in the crook of his elbow. She seemed more nervous now that the witch was leading them inside.

Harry awkwardly walked through the door with her into the room of black doors lit by blue flame. As he crossed the threshold, the black parchment crumbled into dust in his hand, and Astoria's did as well. The Unspeakable witch didn't even blink.

The door to the hallway slammed behind them and the doors began to spin around the wildly. Harry, who had been expecting it, felt Astoria's grip tighten. Harry turned to reassure her. Before he could come up with the words, the doors stopped spinning and the witch stepped up to one of them confidently and pushed it open.

Harry was more careful walking with Astoria through the second door, so it took him a moment to notice where they were.

The room looked exactly the same. The stone benches descended into the pit in the floor where the stone archway sat, the tattered black curtain moving as if in a light wind.

Harry froze. For a moment he was there again and Lupin was holding him back as Sirius disappeared forever. His heart raced.

Astoria was looking at the arch, her lips slightly open. If Harry strained, he was sure he could hear the voices softly calling--Harry cleared his throat.

"No," he said. He meant it to be firm, but it came out hoarse. Astoria closed her mouth. The witch, who had been walking forward briskly, stopped and looked back at them.

"No," Harry repeated. "I have no idea what you think you're doing with us, but no, I won't do it." He wanted to sound more authoritative, but his voice trailed off at the end.

Astoria turned sharply from Harry to the wizard, her voice crisp. "If Mr. Potter leaves, I leave as well," she said, with all the firmness Harry couldn't summon.

The witch looked surprised and flustered. "Mr. Potter, Ms. Greengrass-"

"Mrs. Malfoy," Astoria corrected.

"-yes, my apologies, Mrs. Malfoy, I assure you we are not approaching the arch, we merely wish-"

Another witch poked her head out of a doorway Harry hadn't noticed on the other side of the room. "Turpin, are you scaring them off? I told you they aren't Unspeakables"

The second witch strode out of the office. She had brown skin and her hair was in a neat twist under her hat. She walked around the edge of the room towards them.

"My apologies for Turpin," she said, shaking her head. "Honestly, if the two of you could just come over the offices we could get started."

"Started on what?" Harry said. He was starting to put himself between the Unspeakables and Astoria. He could push her toward the door and blast the Unspeakables back if they weren't going to let them through.

The witch waved her arm. "A few scanning spells, maybe a few ounces of blood. We do have a few questions for the both of you, but we've only really begun the research. We only just want information at this point."

"Information?" Astoria asked, confused.

"Just a baseline examination," the Unspeakable confirmed. "Shouldn't take too long."

Harry looked down at the arch. "Will we be told what this examination is to study?" His voice was dry.

"Certainly not!" Turpin protested, "You are serving a duty to the future of magic-kind, not getting a tour of the Department! The idea-"

The second witch rolled her eyes again. "If you wish," she said, "but that would be a much longer process as we would first need your permission to modify your memory after we explained."

"So if you tell us, you'll take our memories, and if we just guess, you won't?" Harry was frustrated with the bureaucracy of the Ministry all the time, but he was starting to have the dawning realization that he knew why the witches and wizards who studied death might be interested in him.

"Exactly," she confirmed. "So really it would be best if you answer our questions, and you'll be on your way shortly."

Astoria was watching him closely. Harry had no idea why she was here. Part of him was still uneasy in the room, and he didn't trust them at all. But he didn't want to leave; he wanted more information.

"Just a few charms, and some questions?" Harry checked.

"And we'll probably need to draw blood," the witch said. "For future study, of course."

"Fine," Harry decided. "But if either Mrs. Malfoy or I wish to leave at at any time, both of us will be leaving."

Turpin sputtered for a bit, but the second witch took it all in stride. "Of course. Mr. Potter, would you please come into the office with us? Mrs. Malfoy, you may wait outside the office."

The witch walked them over to the door on the other side of the room, behind which Harry could see a perfectly ordinary office with a desk and chairs and a bookcase. She guided Astoria to sit on the highest stone bench, only a few feet from the door to the office.

"Don't go down there," Harry said to Astoria. She nodded, her eyes cautious. Harry noticed she was gripping her bag tightly. Her wand was probably in there. Well, if she was married to Draco Malfoy she probably knew a few spells to protect herself.

Harry went in the office.

As they said, it was mostly a lot of questions. Harry had not shared many details about going out to the woods to confront Voldemort at the night of the Battle of Hogwarts. For one, it was just too complicated, and for the other, Harry didn't want to reveal the reality of the Hallows. Or make Horcruxes common knowledge. The two witches were less interested in the Hallows than in Harry himself.

"And you didn't raise your wand to defend yourself?"

"No."

"What did it feel like?"

Harry searched through his memory and tried to describe the sudden peace of being on the train platform with Dumbledore. They didn't let go, though, making him walk through every second from walking out between the trees to the moment when he woke up again and didn't feel any pain from the Death Eater curses.

"Fascinating, fascinating," Turpin muttered, taking notes. "Unspeakable Bhatia, what do you think of this?" They were both asking questions and taking notes and comparing what they wrote and they barely looked at Harry as they talked.

Harry waited for it to feel invasive, but their questions didn’t really bother him. They didn't care about his feelings, and it was nicely impersonal as a result. Harry recounted what happened and they quizzed him on details until Harry said he couldn't recall. They got excited about the silliest things, like how Harry had been physically fine when he woke up, and how he didn't feel any effects during the battle. Harry told them that he thought his exhaustion that night had been a result of the amount of time he's been awake more than some sort of existential weariness of his "newly awakened" soul. They whispered to each other for a few minutes, and then started doing a bunch of charms. A lot of them were the same charms that the Auror Mediwizards used, scanning his body for overall health and producing a few images of his bones and internal organs on glass sheets.

At then end they took some blood and asked him about his general health at present. Harry was probably in better shape in Auror training than he had been even under Oliver's obsessive exercise regime.

After they compared notes, they let him go outside and asked him to send Astoria in.

Astoria was sitting in the same spot on the stone bench, her gaze focused on the arch below her. She was breathing in time with the curtain, Harry noticed. She was straining forward.

"I hear them too," Harry said, recalling Luna standing next to him in his fifth year. It made him feel better, he remembered. Less alone.

Astoria startled. "Oh!" she said, turning away from the arch. She shook her head, and put one hand on her chest, taking a deep breath. "Is it my turn?"

"Yes," Harry said, and when she put her hand up, he helped her up. Before taking a step forward, she turned back to look at the arch for a moment.

"It's not a good idea," Harry advised.

"Right, of course," Astoria said. She straightened her robes and walked into the office. The door swung closed behind her, and Harry took her spot on the bench.

Harry stared down at the arch. He could see where Sirius and Bellatrix had been standing, during that final duel. Other memories were fuzzier; Harry couldn't recall where had been standing. He'd been too distracted by his own duels, and then Sirius. He could hear the mutters and whispers from the arch, but he stayed firmly in his seat.

Harry blew out a breath. This was the closest thing Sirius had to a grave, he supposed. Sometimes he'd talk to Sirius when he went to visit his parents at Godric's Hollow, or when he brought Teddy to Lupin and Tonks' graves. But Sirius himself didn't have one. Sirius probably didn't care one way or another, but Harry wondered if he should put some sort of marker up. In some ways Grimmauld Place was a marker. Sirius would hate that.

"You can have the whole ministry, if you want," Harry said to the arch. "Although I imagine you might like Weasley's Wizard Wheezes more."

The curtain fluttered softly.

Harry watched it, wondering what Sirius would think of his life now. In some ways, Harry was free in a way he'd never known Sirius to be. But he also worked for the Ministry now, and enforced the very laws Sirius had ignored since Hogwarts. Harry was more at peace with Sirius' death then he had been. But there was still an ache of regret sitting and watching the arch. This was the place where Harry lost Sirius. It shouldn’t be the place where Harry went to be close to Sirius still.

Harry heard the door open, and he twisted around to see Astoria coming out. She was clearly upset, twisting a handkerchief in her hand. The Unspeakables were totally unaware, still chatting in their analytic, distant way like they had been for Harry.

"Astoria?" Harry asked hesitantly. She quickly put on a smile, although it didn't quite brighten up her face.

"Helping the future of all magic-kind, was it? I suppose that's nothing for you, Harry Potter, but it's quite exciting for the rest of us witches and wizards." She dabbed the corners of her eyes. "Do you suppose they ever realize we're still here?"

They both looked back at the office where the witches were huddled over a long stretch of parchment and discussing something . They looked up eventually when Astoria coughed politely.

"Oh, right, yes," Turpin said. "Of course."

This time she hustled them along, tapping her foot impatiently while the doors spun around them, and practically shoved them out into the hallway, the door to the Department of Mysteries closing quickly behind them.

Both of them looked at each other. "I suppose we're not needed anymore, then?" Astoria's eyes were crinkled with laughter now.

"I suppose not," Harry said. Harry offered her his arm. He had planned on running back to work after the meeting, but he wanted to walk to her to the Floo.

"It's not as exciting as I thought it would be," Astoria said thoughtfully as they made their way to the lift. She was walking slower now, more hesitantly.

"There are lots of other parts," Harry said, and at Astoria's encouragement he described some of the things he'd seen last time, leaving out the terror and her new father-in-law and just focusing on some of the interesting magic. They rode the lift to the atrium and walked towards the Floos together, Astoria listening closely.

Astoria was fascinated. "They kept all the time turners together?"

"Yeah," Harry said, "back when they had them."

They walked past the new fountain as Astoria shook her head. "I'm glad they're gone, actually. Despite it all, I think the ministry made the right choice to not rebuild the collection."

Harry agreed. There were rumors, of course, of time turners floating around. But any that existed in other countries were under strict watch and the Ministry had instructed the Department of Mysteries to avoid time turners in the future.

They arrived at the first available Floo, and Astoria pulled her hand out from Harry's arm. "Thank you again, Harry Potter," she said, and pulled a bit of Floo from her bag and threw it in the fire.

"Pemberly Flat," she said confidently, and was swept away in the green flames.


	2. Chapter 2

Harry was juggling a crying baby when the next summons came. Ginny had dropped Jamie off an hour earlier, telling Harry that it was his turn; Ginny knew he was having a quiet day and she needed to go to the Falcon's training camp. Jamie was getting too old to sit calmly in the baby carrier while Ginny did interviews. Harry did have a quiet day, having wrapped up two major cases and not yet assigned to anything new. And Harry had enough seniority to claim desk duty for the odd afternoon when Jamie was fussy besides.

Harry was supposed to be reading files about a suspected dwarfish smuggling ring, but instead he was walking up and down his office and bouncing Jamie gently up and down.

"Come on, Jamie, it's okay, I promise, shhhhh," Harry tried to comfort Jamie who kept whimpering and crying alternatively, his snotty nose smearing against Harry's Auror robes. Harry had sent an owl to Teddy offering to hang out with him this afternoon, as Harry was stuck in the office anyway. Teddy was full of energy, and Andromeda appreciated any quiet.

So when Harry's office door opened, Harry was expecting Teddy.. Instead one of the black memos from the Department of Mysteries flew across his office and landed neatly on his desk. Harry groaned. He shifted Jamie onto his hip and picked it up with his spare hand. Another summons, for Thursday this time. Harry rolled his eyes. This was ridiculous, he couldn't just be called out any time they wanted, could he?

Before Harry could call down the hall to Ron to complain, the door burst open again to Teddy, with a rucksack slung over his back.

"Hullo, Harry!" he said, and Jamie looked up from Harry's side at the new person in the room. Harry waved at Andromeda, who waved back and quietly slipped away while Teddy dropped his bag and came over to give Harry a hug.

Harry left the black parchment on his desk and promptly forgot about it as he played with his son and godson for the rest of the day. The next day there was an emergency raid and the day after that he was in Azkaban taking statements. He forgot about the letter until Thursday morning when he tried to sort out the mess on his desk.

Harry groaned again when he saw it, but it was far too late to back out. Rather than start other work, he shoved the parchment in his pocket. Harry pushed all the rest of his parchment into piles and went right down to the Department of Mysteries door.

Harry was a few minutes early, so he paced the hallway absently. His first few years at the ministry he avoided this hallway when possible, still remembering the feeling of seeing it all from Nagini's perspective. Arthur didn't seem bothered and after a while Harry wasn't either. Harry could still remember the days when all he wanted to do was get behind that black door.

This time Harry heard Draco and Astoria coming and he watches the from the door. They walked down the hallway slowly, heads bent together. Draco had one arm wrapped around Astoria's waist and the other arm tucked over a satchel. Astoria had one hand resting on her stomach, and Harry realized that she was pregnant. Her robes were cut and draped to hide the fact, but there was no doubt in Harry's mind. He remembered Molly fussing over Ginny's robes when Ginny finally agreed to buy something new for the pregnancy and he recognized the same style.

Astoria was practically glowing with happiness. She was beaming at Draco while they spoke. Draco, in contrast, looked pinched and stressed, his brow furrowed and his posture protective. As they neared the door, Astoria spotted Harry and waved.

"Hello, Harry Potter," she said cheerfully.

"Hi," Harry said, and then, “Congratulations," looking between Astoria to Draco.

"Thank you," Astoria said. If anything, her smile grew even bigger. "We're very excited, our first, you know."

Draco was still next to Astoria, his hand still resting on her hip. Draco did not look excited. He was frowning down at Astoria as she told Harry that she was expecting in early November.

As she talked, Astoria reached for Draco's bag and tugged it from his grasp. His hand tightened for a moment, and then he let go and she looped it over her own shoulder. Then she put a hand on the one still curled around her waist and looked up at Draco.

"It'll be fine, Draco, I'll be home in an hour or two."

Draco looked torn. He met Harry's eyes for a second. Harry couldn't tell what he saw in them, but Draco slowly pulled his hand from Astoria's hip and curled their fingers together for a moment.

As Draco pulled away fully, he nodded to Harry formally. "Potter."

Harry nodded back. "Malfoy."

Astoria watched the two of them, and then turned to watch Draco walk down the hallway. She had one hand holding her satchel and the other rubbing her stomach absently. A small smile played on her lips as Draco followed the curvature of the corridor out of view.

"You already have a son, don't you?" Astoria said, turning back to him.

Harry was used to people knowing every public detail about his life, and Astoria seemed genuinely interested.

"Oh, yeah," Harry said, "He's nearly two, now." Ginny was also pregnant, but they weren't telling anyone yet. At this point only Molly, Arthur, Hermione, and Ron knew.

Astoria's eyes lit up with interest, and Harry fumbled out his wallet to pull out some pictures. Astoria cooed over Jamie nestled in Ginny's arms, Jamie spitting up all over Teddy, an older Jamie toddling after a laughing Teddy, and Jamie smashing his first birthday cake. Harry also had one picture from his own birthday, of Ginny placing a very small Jamie on Harry’s chest while he was sleeping and him starling awake to Jamie drooling all over his pajamas.

"Oh, he's precious," Astoria said, as Jamie caught up to Teddy in the third photo.

James was such an easy-going baby. After poor Roxanne had kept Angelina and George up for weeks on end refusing to sleep, Harry knew how lucky he was to have Jamie. Harry flipped to another picture of James chewing on a stuffed kneazle, totally absorbed in his task.

The door opened and Unspeakable Turpin stepped out. "Good, you're here." She didn't even let the black door close before turning around and walking back through it

Harry held out his arm and Astoria took it and they walked into the blue light of the room of doors together. Harry patted his pocket, and felt the black parchment crumble to dust.

This time the Unspeakables had a third, a new young man. They kept correcting his notes. Harry gathered that his name was Zhou as he also never introduced himself. They reviewed the events of Voldemort killing Harry briefly and once they confirmed that Harry didn't remember anything new, they ran the same medical charms and took some blood and let him out to fetch Astoria.

Astoria was sitting in the same spot on the bench as last time, but she had a large children's book propped open against her stomach. Her bag was lying on the bench next to her, and two more colorful book covers peeked out.

Harry saw that the illustrations in the book were clearly magical. Andromeda had some books like these for Teddy, where colorful animals moved across the pages and reacted to tiny hands poking or tickling and petting, depending on the story. Astoria was dragging her finger across the page and a blue sheep followed the path of her finger.

"Astoria?" Harry said, and she looked up.

"Oh, hello Harry Potter. That was fast."

"Enjoying the book?" Harry asked, and Astoria looked down and laughed.

"Oh, yes, I'm trying to find good books for when this one is born." She lifted the book and nodded at her stomach.

"Starting a little early, aren't you?" Harry asked, teasing.

She put the book down on top of her bag, and wrapped one arm around her stomach. "Well, it's exciting."

Harry doesn't think she's stopped smiling once.

She put her hands on the bench to help push herself up and Harry quickly reached forward to help her. She thanked him for his help as he pulled her up, and she walked to the office with a bounce in her step, leaving her books behind.

Harry sat down in the seat she had vacated, and looked at the pile of books, curious. Harry opened the top one and started reading the story of the lonely blue sheep who was lost and was looking for his family. The sheep wandered through Godric's Hollow, Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley before finding his herd in North Wales being tended to by a nice wizarding family. The second book was an introductory guide to identifying magical herbs and fungi, with different herbs growing on the pages as Harry twirled the little moon on the corner of every page. The last book, Harry was shocked to find, was a Muggle book, with no moving pictures or images at all. It was about a little girl in London who travelled to Paris and saw pretty art in the Louvre. The book had scattered French and some art history. Harry, baffled, read it twice to see what hidden agenda there must be somewhere in the book. But it seemed as light and fluffy as the other two, just Muggle.

Harry realized he'd read all three books and Astoria still hadn't come out. He put all the books back in her bag and craned his neck to see the door to the office still closed. Harry wondered if the spells had to be modified so much because she was pregnant. Ginny's appointments had never taken this long, though.

Harry looked down at the arch again. After talking with Ginny, they'd made a headstone for Sirius next to Harry's dad in Godric's Hollow. Harry had taken Jamie so he could show him both of his names. One day Harry would bring Jamie and he would be able to actually read the names on the graves.

The room was still filled with horrible memories, but having been forced to sit in it once, Harry found he could bear it again. He had spoken with Ginny after the last time. She had been freshly showered from Quidditch practice and they had curled up together on the couch with chocolate and Harry had talked about Sirius. Harry admitted how he felt sometimes when he was sitting with the Weasley's and knowing that they were the closest thing he had to a real family. 

It hurt to admit, but after all this time, the pain of losing Sirius was faded as well, another part of Harry’s youth. Harry told himself he should tell Teddy about Sirius too. Teddy would probably appreciate stories about his dad’s mates. Harry had. 

The office door opened and Harry grabbed Astoria's bag and stood to see Astoria slowly walking out. The smile that had been on her face was gone and the three Unspeakables were all huddled over one of the glass plates.

Harry held up Astoria's bag and she smiled slightly, reaching out for it. "Did you read the books?" she asked.

"I liked the one about the Louvre," Harry said, curious how she would respond.

She brightened immediately. "I like it too! Draco and I found it at the local bookshop in the village. We were trying to find something that wouldn't be too unfamiliar."

Zhou came out of the office and offered his arm to Astoria. She waved him away and took Harry's arm automatically. Harry was still a little baffled by the idea of Draco in a muggle book shop, and let Astoria keep talking.

"And I think it will be a good introduction to art. The Manor has quite a collection of Renaissance art, with a focus on French painters. Some of the oldest pieces aren't even magical, although those have been in storage until recently."

They paused in the room of doors while the room spun around them. Zhou wasn't paying any attention to them, his nose still buried in his notes. Zhou hustled them both out into the hallway and pulled the door closed behind them. Harry could picture him sprinting back across the room to get back to his notes.

Astoria looked amused at she stared at the black door, and then shook her head. "So I am trying to curate a good introduction to reading, for the baby."

Harry's own collection of books and toys for Jamie and Teddy were mostly a combination of buying anything that caught his eye in the shops, any anything lent to him by Molly, Bill, George, and Percy. A lot of baby toys traveled from one Weasley to another depending on the age of the various children.

Harry automatically walked with Astoria to the lift, and then across the lobby of the Ministry. This time she paused in front of the fountain, which had been replaced again since Voldemort's day. Now it was an abstract design of moving metal shapes meant (Harry had been assured) to represent the shared flow of magic in the wizarding world. As the shapes twisted, water dripped down in rivulets to splash in the fountain below. There was also a plaque of rotating names set into the base around the fountain, of people who died in the last war. 

Astoria tugged his arm when she stopped for a moment, watching the twisting metal shapes spiral and fall. There was a lot of controversy when the fountain was being rebuilt. Most witches and wizards hated the modern design of the fountain and complained that it didn't look like anything. Ron was baffled by it. Hermione loved it. Harry himself found the smooth endless cycling pleasantly neutral, and he liked it far better than the past two fountains.

Astoria looked up at the fountain for a moment, and then dug into her pocket for a coin. She came up with a sickle, and held it in her hand for a moment, before gently tossing it into the fountain. She stood and watched the place where her coin had disappeared.

Harry was aware of people watching the two of them. People always watched him in public, and he was mostly used to it. But he felt oddly protective of Astoria, who had placed her free hand back on her stomach.

She blew out a breath. "Thank you." She started walking toward to Floos, leading Harry now. "I wasn't sure if I would get a chance to come back before the birth, you know."

"Did you make a wish?" Harry asked. It always amused him that even witches and wizards had superstitions.

"Oh yes," Astoria said. "But I can't tell you, of course."

"You know, muggles also throw coins into fountains to make wishes," Harry said. He couldn't contain his curiosity. Her reaction to muggle things were so unexpected that he wanted to see how she would react to other things.

"Really?" Astoria said. "But I thought muggles don't believe in magic?"

"Well, most wizards don't believe that tossing a coin into a fountain means your wish will come true either," Harry pointed out.

Astoria laughed, her hand rubbing her stomach again. "Oh, what's the use being magic if some things aren't still mysteries?" She nodded back toward the lifts, and the Department of Mysteries, "Magic doesn't mean we've solved everything." They stopped in one of the lines for a Floo and inched forward as the line shrank. Astoria looked back at the atrium, bustling with witches and wizards chatting over the tinkling sounds of the fountain and the _whoosh_ and _pop_ of people coming and going by Floo and Apparation

"For example," Astoria said softly, watching a two wizards swing a small giggling child between them as they walked past, "we haven't quite managed to figure out luck."

Harry opened his mouth to ask what she meant, but it was her turn and she reached to shake his hand. "Goodbye again, Harry Potter!" she said, and with one smooth gesture she threw her Floo Powder into the fireplace, stepped after it and called "Pemberly Flat!"

Harry stood for a moment after she disappeared, turning the puzzle of Astoria Malfoy over in his mind. She clearly had an interest in the muggle world, if less than complete knowledge. But Harry tried to square that with the boy who had taught him and Hermione the word "mudblood" in second year and he wondered what the hell happened there. And something had happened to her, something similar to enough to the time he died that the Unspeakables wanted to study them together. 

Then the witch behind him cleared his throat and Harry startled, then stepped out of the Floo line. People were still watching him, so he stuck his hands in his pockets and head back to his office. Maybe he would take Teddy out for ice cream this weekend and they could discover a new way for James to smush food in his hair.

**Author's Note:**

> This is being posted unbetaed for now. Please forgive all Americanisms, and hopefully I'll be to go back and edit any glaring errors later.


End file.
